Rethinking the Debt in Newfoundland & Labrador
Is there a progressive answer to how Newfoundland & Labrador’s debt could be managed while avoiding crippling austerity?
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#NLRising, 3 Years On
The 2019 NL provincial election is just eight days away, and yesterday marks three years since the #NLRising rally on Confederation Hill, organized by the NL Federation of Labour. I was invited to sing a couple of songs, so I took the opportunity to write a new one, directly addressing the 2016 Liberal austerity budget. Out came ‘Go Away Dwight and Cathy’, which singled out cuts to education and library closures, cuts to healthcare, and the ‘deficit reduction levy’. The 2016 Liberal budget was an attack on the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, there is no doubt about that. But people spoke out. The rally worked, to some degree. The song? The downfall of writing political songs is that they are only usually relevant to a situation for a short period of time, however, they will always remain historically significant. ‘Go Away Dwight and Cathy’ never gets much airplay these…
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Oil is On the Way Out, but NL is Going All-In
Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swede, has jolted the world awake by simply telling a hard truth: adults have stolen her generation’s future because we have not confronted the climate crisis. “I don’t want you to be hopeful,” she tells us, “I want you to panic. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.” Her words have inspired millions of children globally to demand real action from their political leaders. This message is an essential one for Newfoundland and Labrador’s upcoming election. Greta and her generation know all too well that to have any chance of a liveable climate for most of us, global temperature increases must be kept below two degrees of warming. To do this, emissions have to drop steeply, reaching zero—no emissions at all—by 2050. It would have been a…
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The Red and Blue Doors Open the Same Room
As promised in response to the budget/not-a-budget pre-election kick off, I thought it would be useful to take a deeper look at what the Liberals have accomplished in their four years in office. Halfway through the election campaign is as good a time as any. Everything old is new again. As both the Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives have now released their “costed” platforms, it’s probably a good idea to think back to where we were when the parties went through this exercise in 2015. Memories of Elections Past In the spring of 2015, Progressive Conservative premier Paul Davis brought down an austerity budget in response to the collapse in oil prices and the sudden realization that the good times of the previous decade had gone bust. Budget ’15 projected staggering deficits and proposed a series of tax increases (including a controversial HST increase) and a public sector attrition plan…
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Anatomy of a Throne Speech
Liberals’ Speech from the Throne indicates Budget 2017 will deliver more of the same.
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The Government Game going strong in 2016
St. John’s songwriter rewrites classic Newfoundland song “The Government Game” in response to the Liberal government’s austerity budget.
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The merchant days are over
“We need to stand together and show that we are more than the quaint people hanging clothes in tourist commercials.”
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Filibusters aren’t the problem for women in politics
Minister Gerry Byrne’s recent comment that the filibuster served as a deterrent for women entering politics told only part of the story.
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Liberals face mounting scorn as anti-austerity movement matures
As residents and groups ramp up direct action efforts while resistance to austerity grows, some observers are calling for movement to embrace mutual aid.
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“Don’t kill the river,” sings Labrador songwriter
Jacinda Beals Band releases new song in an effort to save Muskrat Falls and the Grand River.
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Something very different is happening in Newfoundland and Labrador
For all the negative things it will do to our province, the Liberals’ austerity budget is bringing people together in a very meaningful way.
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We have the answers
It was published almost 40 years ago, but the People’s Commission on Unemployment report reads as if it were written today.
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“Keep on marching”
“[T]his government did not concede anything out of ‘caring’. They were drove to their knees by the pressure from the marchers…”
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If you can’t lead, then get out
The Nalcor scandal is just the tip of the iceberg.
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Peer loyalties in Budget 2016
It might sound too simple or gauche, but is it possible the personal wealth of Dwight Ball and Cathy Bennett might actually lie at the very heart of the budget about to go before the N.L. legislature?
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The revolution will not be broadcast
The courage of one MHA has brought the Liberals to a tipping point at precisely the moment the people of Newfoundland and Labrador have united and found their collective voice. So where’s the coverage?
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Latest anti-austerity protests “only the beginning”
Saturday’s “NL Rising” protest in St. John’s was more than just a warning from the unions. It was a show of solidarity with an explicit message for the Liberal government.
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The Coywolves
The Coywolves Shape-shifters — wild wolf, urban crackie and well camouflaged coyote have only recently merged as a species a hybrid that will turn colour, depending on land, sea, or sky change; they have no reservation, boundary, and breed prodigiously among us endlessly filling their own predatory veins with blood and bone entrails. I thought about what had come out of their ravenous faces when they expressed on tv or came to our places asking us to let them in but I did not expect to see such a muted lot for they lack any inhibition to suppress their lust with their thrusting of everyone and anyone who has lesser bloody money than they Don Gillis / St. John’s
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If you love this province
Newfoundland and Labrador needs its young people now more than ever.
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Corner Brook residents march against austerity
First Nations leaders, community groups and residents march in Corner Brook, call on Liberals to rescind austerity budget.
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